Ronan Farrow’s MSNBC Show Gets February Start Date

More than four months after MSNBC confirmed that Ronan Farrow would be getting his own show on the cable news network, he finally has a debut date. Farrow’s yet unnamed show will premiere on February 24 at 1 PM ET, MSNBC announced this morning. Also joining the daytime lineup is longtime contributor and Grio.com editor Joy Reid. The recent fill-in host’s own show will also start February 24 at 2 PM ET following Farrow. “Ronan and Joy are two of the most thoughtful and impressive journalists out there and I’m excited for what they will bring to the afternoon,” said MSNBC president Phil Griffin in a statement today. The additions mean some current MSNBC shows will be moved around: Andrea Mitchell Reports will shift to noon, and NewsNation With Tamron Hall will move to 11 AM ET.

7 Comments

A Woody Allen show I’d watch in a heartbeat, a show hosted by Ronan Farrow, could care less. I like MSNBC, but this smacks of desperation and likely to reap few rewards (and/or ratings).

John W • on Jan 27, 2014 9:35 am

You experience desperation every time you tune in to MSNBC.

Aaron Smith • on Jan 27, 2014 9:35 am

Yes, the desperation you experience when you tune into MSNBC is , while being a counter-balance to Fox’s “news” network that panders to conservatives that watch Fox News only to have their bigoted intolerance and close-minded stubbornness to move forward with the rest of the world reinforced and repeated back to them, is the desperation to provide that counter-balance while still maintaining INTERGRITY and actually carrying about the content they report.

You will not see MSNBC throwing up headlines and stories that have not only not been thoroughly investigated or fact checked, but not really questioned at all as long as those headlines are in tune with the conservative message Fox is trying to put out.

Fact-checking sites have shown that Fox News is by far the most consistently erroneous news network, with their inaccurate reporting and misinformation is more than 400% greater than MSNBC and more than 600% greater than CNN. However, despite Fox News continually reporting things inaccurately and getting caught doing so, it hasn’t stopped them. In fact, Fox News also ranks dead last as it pertains to correcting misinformation and retracting false statements.

In just the past year or so, we can talk about Fox News’s inaccurate statements and reporting about the Fast & Furious program, the so-called “IRS scandal” and their attempt to tie it to Obama, the Benghazi situation (which, for Fox News, set a completely new standard for just how ridiculous their credibility is), the government shutdown, the Treyvon Martin case, and of course, their most trumpted issue: The Affordable Care Act.

For example, we’ve seen Fox News just pick up stories and selling it without doing even the minimum amount of research to make sure what they were telling people was true.

We have the incident where Fox News claimed that Obama’s trip to Asia (which was a very important trip as it pertains to the United States’ diplomacy and foreign affairs issues in that region as well as the concern about China’s rising power, and suddenly, more aggressive assertiveness in the region. It also had to do with North Korea acquiring nuclear capabilities and China’s under the radar assistance to North Korea and supporting them despite their continued threats to use nuclear weapons to attack South Korea, US military bases, the US itself, and its allies in that region.

So while this was a very important diplomatic mission to go to Asia and establish and enhance diplomatic relations in that region. Obama and democrats understand that the US can not longer have this “go it alone” attitude of the GOP and George W. Bush’s lies to the UN about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and not having the UN’s support to attack Iraq and yet doing so anyway. That fallout of the US attacking Iraq and ousting Saddam Hussein w hich has weakened the Iraq government and has lead to less stability in the region and more local conflicts. Also, the lack of being able to find these supposed weapons of mass destruction the Bush Administration claimed Iraq resulted in an immeasurable damage of the United States’ credibility and the further damage it did to the United States’ ability diplomatic leverage with our enemies, but also changed the perception of the US in the eyes of our strongest allies!

So, while Obama has been trying to reestablish relations with nations that George W. Bush destroyed, but also mend our relations with our own allies. In fact, Obama and the democratic party has much more respect on the global stage as it pertains to our allies, and in fact, also with our enemies because when the US has its allies standing with it, the US is ten times the treat it is alone.

So, what did Fox News report about his trip to Asia? They said it would cost 200 million dollars a day. Why did Fox News say this? Well, it seems some RANDOM POLITICAL BLOGGER from India made this claim. Did Fox News fact check it? Nope. They just reported it as if it were the truth. And then tons of republican congressional members started quoting these number in interviews because they heard it on Fox News. Ultimately, Obama’s trip to Asia actually cost less than 10 million dollars a day.

What about when Fox News reported that Obama has closed the US embassy to the Vatican? Fox News was all over this, attacking Obama and saying that he was clearly a Muslim for doing this sort of thing and that it was the thing that everybody had feared he would finally do! LOL! A couple people on Fox News suggested that Obama might be closing the embassy to the Vatican because he was exacting revenge on the catholic church because a few a group of Catholics were suing the US government over the Affordable Care Act!

Unfortunately, Fox News misreported once again. The truth was, the US embassy to the Vatican was not closed but being moved to another building that also held the Italian Embassy to the Vatican, and that the new Embassy was actually CLOSER to the Vatican than it had been before. On top of that, it was done for security and cost reasons (it was supposed to save about 2 million dollars a year) because to share the building that held the Italian Embassy to the Vatican, it enabled the embassy to be protected more easily by having both Italian security and US security working together rather than both nations having to both pay fore the entire cost of security to both nations being able to sort of split the bill and save money considering you don’t need as much security to guard one building as you do two separate ones. Also, it turned out that the moving of the embassy was something that had already been planned for years and was actually approved by Congress back when George W. Bush was president. Did that stop Fox News from reporting the bogus story? No. Did they correct their lies? No.

OR what about the case where Fox News had a whole segment about how a father tried to get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act system but he claimed that the ACA was not covering his baby. Fox News ran this story as trying to show flaws in the ACA that didn’t exist and to spread misinformation about the ACA without doing any checking on the story. When real journalists looked into the issue, it turned out that the man had forgotten to put his baby on the application form!! He just forgot to put one of his children on his application form! And yet Fox News ran the story as if it were accurate. Did they correct their false reporting? NO.

And of course there is Benghazi and the way Fox News tried to turn that into some kind of conspiracy theory and the part the Obama administration played in the situation in an attempt to act as if the administration knew there might be attacks but just ignored the information. What’s somewhat amusing about that issue is the fact that, while no evidence that anyone had gotten any information or prior knowledge about what might happen at the embassy…but we do know that the Bush Administration had not only gotten warning that a terrorist attack on the US was imminent but also got a warning that terrorists might try to hijack plane(s) to fly into buildings!!

What’s even worse is, Republicans voted to cut 300 million dollars from the budget for security at US embassies. So what’s pathetic is that while the only actual blame that can be found for Benghazi was republicans cutting the security budget for US embassies. In fact, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Republicans’ proposed cuts to her department would be “detrimental to America’s national security.” Do you think Fox News informed any of its viewers about that?!

I could go on forever…but I will tell you what desperation actually looks like. Did you watch Fox News in 2012 the day before the elections? The pundits on Fox News were all predicting Romney would win by a landslide and that they would take over the Senate and increase their majority in the House.

Well, not only did Romney not win in a landslide, he didn’t win, and it wasn’t even close. As far as the Senate, the republicans did not only NOT take the majority but actually LOST seats in the Senate. The same goes for the House too, where they lost seats there as well.

And did you see Karl Rove and Fox News in desperation mode as they saw Romney actually getting killed and the GOP losing every election they said they would win in senate seats? It was laughable.

So all you need to do is go look back at what Fox News was reporting the day before and the day of the 2012 election to see what real desperation looked like.

Iron Johnson • on Jan 27, 2014 9:35 am

Should we anticipate that he’ll have to issue his first public apology over tasteless comments in March or April, then be canceled by May or June?

cadavra • on Jan 27, 2014 9:35 am

Reid is extremely bright, but frankly, she’s dull as dishwater. I’d rather see Melissa Harris-Perry take over the slot.

Carol • on Jan 27, 2014 9:35 am

I’d like to see Richard Lui and Craig Melvin get a show of their own.

Margaret • on Jan 27, 2014 9:35 am

Looking forward to Farrow’s new show. Very proud he spoke out for his sister. I wish him all the success in the world.